


When Everything's Made To Be Broken

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-23
Updated: 2010-10-23
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:41:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mercedes waits until they run through “River Deep, Mountain High” twice before she takes advantage of the fact that Santana’s hands and mouth are greedily wrapped around a Cheerios water bottle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Everything's Made To Be Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Coda to 2x4 "Duets"

Mercedes waits until they run through “River Deep, Mountain High” twice before she takes advantage of the fact that Santana’s hands and mouth are greedily wrapped around a Cheerios water bottle.  
  
“What’s Brittany doing with Artie?”  
  
So she could have been a little more graceful with that, but Santana snorts anyway as she swallows, the noise echoing metallically against the water bottle.  
  
She’s not sure why she’s asking, because  _really_  it’s not her drama, but after watching Brittany draw a line across her chest and shake her finger at Santana – after seeing the way Santana looked down and away when that happened – she figures she better say  _something_  before Santana tries to punch someone during a duet. Again.  
  
Of course,  _Mercedes_  is the person at risk here, again, so she’s really only asking to ensure that she doesn’t get manicured, Cheerio-red nails to the eyes halfway through their duet.  
  
“I mean,” Mercedes continues, capitalizing on the silence, “she’s never even talked to him. And now she’s dating him?”  
  
Mercedes watches Santana’s eyes darken and every alarm bell inside her head starts going off. Something tells her to abort, but she stares pointedly at Santana. “So?” Santana finally says. “That’s nice for them.”  
  
She knows she needs to choose her words carefully; knows – from experience and a misplaced affection for Puck’s social status – that Santana is the human definition of a livewire and she’ll spark at the slightest hint of a wrong move; knows that anything can set Santana off and these kinds of conversations don’t happen every day.  
  
So she shrugs her shoulders a little, her bracelets making small jingling noises and says, “I thought you knew.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“I thought you’d  _care_ ,” Mercedes corrects.  
  
Santana puts down her water bottle and crosses her arms over her chest as she pulls her lips back, baring her teeth, sneering. “Well,” she says slowly, “I don’t.”  
  
“Sure looks like you do,” Mercedes mumbles under her breath. She makes a wide circle around Santana as she heads to the stereo to start the song a third time. She can feel Santana’s eyes on her, trailing like a hawk trails its prey before striking, but Mercedes doesn’t look; doesn’t give Santana an opening to engage.  
  
Santana takes it anyway, clearing her throat loudly. “I don’t,” she insists.  
  
Mercedes puts her hands up in surrender, not turning away from the stereo. “I don’t care if you do.”  
  
There’s a silence that’s not uncomfortable, necessarily, but Mercedes still holds her breath, waiting; waiting for Santana to push her, again, or snap at her, or tell her to mind her own goddamn business. Her shoulders tense, her hands brace against the shelf holding the stereo and she’s waiting to get smacked across the face.  
  
What she’s not waiting for is a cautious mumble of words.  
  
“What?” she asks, turning around slowly, as if any sudden movement will spook Santana.  
  
“You don’t care?”  
  
Mercedes takes in the way Santana is standing, her arms hanging loosely together, more like she’s hugging herself than pushing the world away. She sighs and rolls her eyes, smiling.  
  
“Of course I don’t. Artie’s with your girl,” Mercedes says. “You’re allowed to care about it.”  
  
Santana shakes her head. “She’s not my girl.”  
  
“But…”  
  
Dark eyes narrow. “But what?”  
  
Mercedes almost laughs, but she just stares quietly for a moment. “But you want her to be.” Santana makes no motion to correct her – or tell her she’s wrong, Mercedes notices. “Or, at least, she wants to be.”  
  
Santana snickers to herself. “She wanted to sing some chick song by Melissa Etheridge,” she says, smiling in a way that Mercedes knows isn’t for her.  
  
“Then why aren’t you singing with her?”  
  
A dark ponytail swings through the air as Santana shakes her head furiously, shifts and cants a hip out. “Are you kidding me? We would be laughed at.”  
  
Mercedes raises and eyebrow, mimicking Santana’s stance. “By who?”  
  
The question seems to catch Santana genuinely off-guard, because the cheerleader’s mouth open and closes a few times and no sound comes out. “By you,” she finally sputters.  
  
Mercedes’ eyebrow lifts a little higher and she turns to look at who Santana is pointing at, because she’s  _sure_  Santana isn’t talking about her or Glee. She points at herself. “By me,” she repeats, resisting the urge to laugh again.  
  
“Not  _you_ , Wheezy,” Santana snaps. “By everyone. Glee club. The Cheerios. Coach Sylvester. They’ll laugh and point and we’ll be slushied everyday.”  
  
“You do know who my best friend is, right? You know that Kurt,  _my best friend_ , is gay, right?” Santana gives her a  _so what?_  look and Mercedes almost reaches across the distance between them just to smack Santana in the side of the head. Instead, she huffs loudly and crosses her arms over her chest firmly and stares Santana down. “So why should I care about what you and Brittany do? Why would anyone else?”  
  
Mercedes sits on the edge of her bed, looking at the seat next to her expectantly. She waits until Santana is sitting next to her before she says anything. “Listen,” she starts gently. “You shouldn’t care what anyone thinks. You’re scary. People are scared of you. Personally, I’d be embarrassed. If people were scared of me,” she rushes to clarify. “But that’s like, a goal of yours, or something, right?”  
  
“It doesn’t hurt when you’re late for class and everyone gets out your way,” Santana agrees, uncharacteristically quiet.  
  
It’s actually unnerving, the way Santana  _isn’t_  being a bitch right now, but Mercedes was a Cheerio, and she lived with Quinn, even if only for a little while, and there are things she picked up along the way, from both experiences. She heard Santana singing behind her at the assembly; she knows there’s something there – maybe not an overwhelmingly sentimental heart, exactly, but definitely a heart – that beats inside Santana.  
  
Mercedes knows, even if she can’t explain it, that it beats a little harder for Brittany than for anybody else.  
  
“I’m not sure what either of you want,” she says cautiously. “But if you want to sing a duet in Glee, none of us are going to laugh. Not because it’s two girls singing. Or because it’s a love song.”  
  
Santana shakes her head. “I can’t. I don’t know why she doesn’t get it.”  
  
And Mercedes shrugs, because she doesn’t know either. “You’re not going to find out from her if she’s too busy macking on Artie.”  
  
The cheerleader shudders.  
  
Mercedes rolls her eyes and shakes her head at herself because this girl puts things in her food – and really, she should start paying attention before she takes a bite of something – but she knows that Santana smiles a  _little_  more when Brittany is with her and that’s better for the whole team.  
  
 _For the team_ , she tells herself.  _And for Brittany_.  
  
“Let’s go through it one more time, okay?”  
  
Santana looks up from her hands. “What?”  
  
“You want to win, don’t you?”  
  
Santana hesitates. “Well, maybe, if we let Brittany and Artie win, she’d be happy again?”  
  
Mercedes shakes her head. “Hell no. No offense to your girl, but Finn and Rachel paired up. And Kurt wants to sing with the new kid. Artie and Brittany don’t stand a chance.  _But_ …” she trails off, smirking.  
  
“But,” Santana continues, sitting up and squaring her shoulders in the way that makes freshmen wish they’d brought a spare change of clothes to school. “But  _we_  can win.”  
  
“If anyone can beat Rachel and Finn, it’s going to be us.” Mercedes plants her hands on her hips and grins at her reflection in the mirror on her dresser. “And when we win, you’re going to take Brittany to Breadstix.”  
  
Santana’s face of determination falters a little. “You and I are partners.”  
  
“I don’t really like Breadstix.” She waves away Santana’s look of pure shock. “I mean, it’s like the Olive Garden. Just more expensive. You and Brittany should go. That way, she’ll stop pushing Artie through the hallways.” Mercedes frowns. “She’s using him as a battering ram and it’s making him lazy.”  
  
Santana snorts and stands, straightening her skirt, even if it’s going to be twirled around her in messy columns as soon as the music starts. She stands next to Mercedes in the mirror, smirking at their reflection staring back at them. Santana slides an arm around Mercedes shoulders and nods. “We have to win.”  
  
Mercedes nods just as seriously. “We will.”  
  
“That Breadstix dinner is ours.”  
  
“Yours.”  
  
Santana grins. “That Breadstix dinner is mine.”


End file.
